


Best Night Never

by Samirant



Category: Never Have I Ever (TV)
Genre: F/M, Post-Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:15:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28144446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Samirant/pseuds/Samirant
Summary: Is it too much to ask for the universe to give Ben Gross a goddamn break already?
Relationships: Ben Gross/Devi Vishwakumar
Comments: 11
Kudos: 78
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Best Night Never

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nausicaa_lives](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nausicaa_lives/gifts).



Ben Gross was used to disappointment. 

Not to get all _poor little rich boy_ about it, but the saying didn’t come from out of nowhere. If one really wanted to split hairs, it was first _poor little rich **girl** , _but as it’s the twenty-first century, even insulting idioms could stand to get with the times.

All this to say: Ben Gross may have access to all the best things that money could buy, but he was all too aware of the fact that money couldn’t buy happiness. 

Idioms. What are you even. 

(Ben knew. He had the PSAT score to prove it.)

The universe saw fit to remind him every time his parents would rather jetset to another country than spend time with him, when he had a spare ticket without a soul to claim it, when Devi Vishwakumar kissed him for a blissful minute and a half, then froze, pushed him away and said, “You still have a _girlfriend_.”

Shit.

He did.

“Shit,” Ben groaned out. “I do.”

Devi gave him a stilted smile - a rictus, Ben’s traitorous brain helpfully suggested - and she brushed her hair out of her face, then tucked her hands into her sleeves and crossed her arms. Ben watched her every movement, pointedly avoiding looking at her kiss-swollen mouth. 

“At least this time you can tell her that I started it?”

“This time?” Ben attempted and failed to scoff. “I didn’t tell her about last time.”

“Ah. Yeah. Well. That makes sense.” Devi’s weak laugh was just as hollow. “Nobody needs that drama.”

Any other time, Ben would have asked if someone had traded out Devi’s personality while she was out there on the beach, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes and the longer they sat there, the more he wanted to slam the car into reverse and head for the hills. It wouldn’t be a good look for him to dump her out on the side of the road, no matter how many times his idle daydreams had followed that narrative in the past. 

He tried to put out of mind what he’d rather be doing with Devi at the moment. “So, uh, you made it? Caught up with your mom?”

“I made it,” Devi said slowly. 

“Good.”

“Yeah.”

What did you even say to someone who just spread their beloved dad’s ashes in the ocean? What did you say after you managed to finally kiss them and they shoved you off, _again_? 

After _spreading their dad’s ashes in the ocean_.

The hills were looking better and better. 

Devi found the words before he could. “I should go, my mom’s waiting.”

Ben pivoted in his seat, grabbing onto the steering wheel as if he was ready to back out of the parking space. The car wasn’t even on. “Oh, so you’re going-”

“Home, yeah. It’s… it’s time. The Doobie bros and I were never meant to last.”

He risked a glance in her direction. She’d uncrossed her arms, her fingertips barely emerging from the cuffs of her long sleeves like little raccoon claws, and she started biting at one of her nails, resolutely looking out the windshield. 

“I’ll uh, I’ll ask Patty to get your stuff together,” he offered. 

“Awesome, thanks… dude,” she said in return. 

They would have fallen into another soundless detente if Devi’s phone hadn’t buzzed in her purse, followed quickly by the loud honk of a horn a few spaces down. Ben reached for her bag, only to snatch his hands back when Devi got there first and their eyes finally met, Devi’s gone wide and almost wild. 

He started to say something and resorted to a silent wave, halfway to a salute - what the _fuck_ \- and Devi blindly reached for the door handle. Once she was out the door, she looped her bag around her shoulder and did tiny, stuttered finger guns at him. “Catch you later, Gross.”

“Sure, dude,” Ben replied with forced sarcasm. 

It worked, kind of, and Devi smiled and Ben almost stretched out to snag her back into the car. Before he could, she was off. 

He watched her through the rearview, then the side mirror, turning in his seat as she made her way to her mom’s car and fell out of sight entirely on the other side of an oversized climate-abusing SUV. Seconds later their car pulled out and Ben pretended to look at his phone, in case someone happened to look back and catch him staring like a creep.

If she did, there was no way to know. 

He used the back roads to get home, to avoid the perils of freeway travel.

###### 

He tried to break up with Shira that evening, but she wasn’t having it. 

“That really doesn’t work for me?” she said when he finally got a hold of her after several text messages, a few phone calls, and finally flagging her down through an Instagram mention. “Like, I really don’t need to deal with the fallout right now. Let’s talk about it later, okay?”

“But I kissed someone else,” Ben repeated, wondering if she hadn’t heard him the first time, trying to goad something more out of her than a distracted dismissal if she had.

“Please, I kiss other people all the time, it’s fine.” Shira shouted at one of her friends on her side of the conversation. “Babe, it’s whatever and Zoe really wants me to try her jade roller, byyyyye.”

It didn’t make much difference in their actual relationship, which would have messed with Ben’s head only a week before, but now just left him kind of tired and resigned. Shira continued to use his house and pool as a backdrop for her lookbook and shrugged it off when he declined to go upstairs with her after. The only thing that linked them was when she mentioned a boyfriend in her posts and he could only assume she meant him. 

Devi definitely noticed.

One day, out of nowhere, she asked, “Everything copacetic in Shira-land?” 

They’d staggered their locker visits, Devi spinning on her heels for days and days when she saw him trading out his books, Ben hovering around the corner when she got there first. Mr. Shapiro moved from confused to momentarily relieved and then looked like he was barely suppressing unmitigated terror the longer they politely ignored each other in class. The only person who looked more awkward around Devi was Paxton Hall-Yoshida, but if Ben couldn’t find a way to ask Devi about that, hitting up her faux boy-toy for an explanation was out of the question. 

Their rigidly deferential interactions took a toll and the principal called Ben in to demand that whatever they were up to would have to end because poor Mr. Shapiro was having to increase his Xanax dosage to deal with the change, which… Ben couldn’t even put into words how much he didn’t need to know that. 

If Devi got pulled into the office, Ben couldn’t say for sure, but there she was, waiting when he slammed his locker shut. 

“Uh, it’s fine,” Ben replied, which it was. A relationship in name only, a staple for Hollywood fairy tales for years and years, he just got there a little sooner than most. “You?”

“Not bad.” She poked out her lower lip and bobbed her head, Devi-speak for _there’s a lot I could say, but I’m not sure where to start._

“How’s everything with your mom?” Ben prompted.

She looked relieved and let out a dramatic sigh. “ _So_ much better, I think I’ve almost got her halfway convinced that moving to India should be off the table.”

Ben tried not to let his alarm show. “That’s still the plan?”

“I mean, I’ve had to put on my Best Daughter Ever behavior. Like, I could win a freakin’ Oscar for it, give me my SAG card already,” Devi replied. Then she settled down slightly, gripping and tugging at the backpack straps in her hands. “It’s not that hard, actually. We're kinda starting to figure out how to do things just between us. Kamala’s there, but… you know.”

“Yeah,” Ben agreed, though he sort of didn’t. 

“Don’t count me out, I have very powerful powers of persuasion. That and Dr. Ryan says I’ve come a very long way.” Devi straightened as she said it, lengthening her neck and lifting her chin as she put on an all-knowing voice and Ben couldn’t contain his smile at seeing it. Devi smiled back, a little shyly, and asked, “We’re good, right?”

He swallowed down the lump in his throat. “Totally, yeah, of course, why wouldn’t we be?” 

“Cool,” Devi replied and her smile grew wider. “It’s stupid how quickly I got used to hanging around you, Gross. Kinda missed it.”

“You know, you really _have_ grown,” Ben said wonderingly and got a palm shoved into his shoulder in response. Still, they stepped away from their lockers together and headed to class, a precarious truce formed in between all the things they didn’t say. It was far from what Ben wanted, but at least Mr. Shapiro would be happy. And less medicated.

It was strangely easy, falling back into the friendly dynamic they’d discovered at model U.N. and honed between dinner at her house and the week she stayed at his house. Every once in a while, he joined Devi and her friends - the group stretching out to accommodate Oliver and Eve and a creepily lifelike robot, but not often Jonah because Devi could be only so magnanimous - for lunch and sometimes after school on a taco run. They invited him to Eleanor’s opening night and Devi restrained herself to mocking him during intermission because he brought an even bigger arrangement of roses than Oliver did. 

“It’s classy and polite,” Ben protested.

“Yeah, super classy, getting bigger flowers for a girl than her boyfriend does,” Devi retorted, and made them trade. Eleanor lit up when Oliver handed off Ben’s carefully purchased gift and the way she threw her arms around the other boy made Ben shrug and mutter _fine_ under his breath. Devi beamed and he rolled his eyes. 

The weeks flew by too quickly and with increasingly stomach-turning dread every time Devi shook her head when asked if her mom had decided against moving. It seemed a kindness, and maybe cowardice, that no one argued when Devi hastily changed the subject. 

On the afternoon he came home to find a flyer in the mail from the dermatologist’s office, informing him that Dr. Vishwakumar would be out for two months and _we’re thrilled to offer the services of Dr. Ramamurthy during this time!_ , Ben’s backpack dropped from his nerveless fingers and it took him several minutes before he could pull out his phone and call her. 

“You’re definitely going,” was the first thing he said and Devi grumbled in response.

“I’ve gotten her down to a visit, but no promises. She’s sneaky enough to have someone pack up the house while we’re gone - she still has the realtor’s card on the fridge door.”

“Devi, that really sucks.” It came out far more emphatically than he meant it to. Devi was silent on the other side for several seconds. 

“I’m working on it,” she finally said, sounding far more serious than he’d heard her in a really long time. Then, as if flipping a switch, she brightly asked, “When’s the last time you went to the Santa Monica Pier? Do you think the corn dogs taste as good as when we were kids or was that just a really effective mix of bright lights and festive propaganda?”

###### 

All of that brought him here, pulling his dad’s car up behind Oliver’s on the front curb of the Vishwakumar house, its front yard thankfully lacking a For Sale sign. His chest was doing funny things, vacillating between nervy spirals flowing up and down his sternum and then clenching tight, warning him that he might throw up any second. 

Was it too much to hope that the stars were aligning, that the universe was finally giving him a goddamn break? Only that afternoon had he checked his Instagram feed and found that Shira had posted a gif of Beyonce dancing in black and white, followed by a bunch of Dua Lipa lyrics. Zoe’s gleeful comments cemented that he was now officially single, never mind that he and Shira had barely spoken in weeks. 

He wondered if he would miss her. Shira, that is. He already knew he would miss Devi. God, she wasn’t even gone, but he missed her already. 

He also wanted to kiss her again, though he doubted the universe gave enough of a crap about him to allow _that_. 

It took a few bracing breaths to make it happen, but Ben got out of the car and smoothed down his polo shirt. He’d forgone the suit jacket after Devi uncharitably compared him to some golf dads that were dressed similarly at the play, though he still privately maintained that it was a good look for him. 

Fabiola and Eleanor spilled out of Oliver’s car first, racing ahead of him, whooping when Devi emerged from her front door. She did a spin for them, the skirt of her flowery dress drifting up slightly and Ben had to stare down at his feet in response.

“I need a hamburger the size of my head,” Devi practically shouted. “This night will be cursed with the stench of failure if I don’t.”

“Burgerama? The Tipsy Cow? Your call,” Eleanor said eagerly. Fabiola whipped out of her phone and started announcing how long it would take to get to either of them just as Ben recovered to say, “Guys. Petit has the best burger, hands down.”

“Ugh, obviously you would say the fancy French place,” Devi replied. “What, do you get a side of pretension with your order?”

“No, I get the truffle fries,” Ben said as innocently as possible. 

Devi groaned to cover her laugh and she pushed at Ben to turn around and go back down the sidewalk. “You’ll have to go on your own time, _monsieur_. I want Burgerama.”

“Right, let Yelp make the decision for you, I see how it is,” Ben called over his shoulder. 

“ _Mon_ palate is making the decision.”

“Do you not know the French word for palate? Because I do.”

“Of course you do,” Devi shot back. She manhandled him back to his car and Ben fought a grin when he noted that she was heading to his passenger door and waving to her friends. “We’ll see you there, guys!”

Eleanor shouted _oui oui!_ and the sound of Devi's closing door cut off Fabiola’s patient explanation that only one _oui_ was necessary, then it was just the two of them, away from everyone else for the first time in literal months and Ben was too pleased to be nervous. It was hard to tell if Devi’s nearly-palpable excitement was over the same thing, or simply a reflection of her last night of freedom.

She clenched her purse in her hands and bounced on the seat, announcing, “Please tell me you don’t have to be home before midnight, I actually convinced my mom that I can stay out to a completely normal hour. I think she might already be on India time.”

“So you do have superpowers of persuasion,” Ben replied as they came up on a stop sign at the end of her neighborhood.

“Pfft, yeah, how could you doubt me? Oh! Unlock the doors!”

Ben did it even as he asked, “Why do you-”

Devi answered by flinging herself out of the car, yelling _fire drill!_ as she went. In the car ahead, Fabiola, Eleanor, Oliver and Eve did the same. Devi raced to them and back, slapping on the hood of his car when she returned and shouted, “Ben! Come on!”

He lowered his window and shouted back, “I am not leaving my father’s Porsche unmanned in the middle of the road!”

“Laaaaaaaame!” The word swooped by as Devi ran along the driver’s side. She was fast enough that her hair fluttered like a flag behind her. 

She jumped back in the car and locked in her seatbelt, slightly panting and grinning like a loon. “Must I teach you how to live, Gross?”

“I’d rather stay safe in the car than risk getting hit by passing traffic,” Ben told her.

“So that’s a yes then.”

“Sure, Devi, it’s a yes.” He tried to say it with a long-suffering tone, but smiled all over again when Devi brightened in response. 

It happened twice more before they got to Ventura Boulevard, Devi and her friends running circles around the cars, to the point that almost all of them were partly out of breath when they arrived at Burgerama, leaving it to Ben - the only _sane_ one, as proven by their trip there - to ask for seating. 

It was a cacophony of noise at their table, everyone striving to speak over the other, not one wilting wallflower in the group. They fell into topic after topic, easily diverted as anyone spoke passionately over what they loved the most, be it the stage (Eleanor), Dungeons and Dragons (Oliver), robotics (one guess as to who that was) or basketball (Eve, shockingly). 

Ben stuffed his face with fries, using the excuse of an overfilled mouth to skip his turn. It gave him the opportunity to silently assess Devi’s take on everything said. Between the times she announced that since the Vice-President-Elect’s middle name was Devi, it meant they _must_ be somehow connected on some special plane of existence and that if there was any justice in the world, she would get a chance to play Kamala Khan in the new Miss Marvel movie to show her cousin up, Devi went oddly subdued. 

She went quiet and got a look on her face, one that he’d seen time and again, of deep concentration. This time, Ben didn’t think he was imagining some sorrow there too as she watched Eleanor speak or Fabiola gesture about her latest project. 

If they were the kind of friends who didn’t skirt around the uncomfortable things, Ben would have reached out, maybe touched her shoulder or pushed back her hair to break through the sadness, cheered them both up by-

He stopped and shook his head before Devi could realize he was watching.

They finished eating, much to the obvious relief of their harried server. Ben took on the task of sorting out the bill while everyone else went to the bathroom, inwardly lamenting over the pile of quarters, crumpled singles and fives that had been tossed together. He finally took out his card to pay and was scooping up the change into his pocket when most everyone returned.

Eleanor and Fabiola were whispering together and when Ben looked up, Fabiola did a poor job of trying to distract him. Her gaze darted over to the corridor to the bathrooms and Ben followed it, his stomach sinking when he saw that Devi had been waylaid. By Paxton.

This time, he couldn’t tear his eyes away, not when Paxton did his whole hands-in-pockets, chin tilted down, _aw shucks_ routine, the somehow killer move that made every lovestruck girl in the vicinity melt into a puddle. They were too far for Ben to hear anything, but Devi was nodding, even smiling and softening at whatever Paxton said to her in that damned languorous voice of his. 

“You know they’re just friends, right?” It was Fabiola, who had settled into the empty seat beside him. “That’s all.”

Across the way, Paxton actually took his hands from his pockets and wrapped Devi in a long hug, one that she returned completely. The bastard even tucked his chin over her shoulder. It burned viciously at his insides and Ben pushed back from the table to stand.

“Yeah, that’s all,” he muttered. “I’m going to go get my card, I’ll see you guys outside.”

His stomp away was notably diminished by all the jingling change in his pockets, but Ben tried to keep his head high anyway. 

Everyone eventually followed him outside, Devi surprisingly lacking a Paxton-shaped limpet and Ben roughly nodded when she asked if he was ready to go. She still got in his car, but no matter how much he tried to hide his unhappiness, he clearly failed because before he could touch the gear shift, Devi demanded, “Okay, dude, what the hell?”

_Dude._

“Exactly, _what the hell_?” Devi repeated.

Ah, so he’d scoffed that out loud. Ben tried to recover and mumbled, “Nothing, let’s go.”

“No, let’s stay and you can tell me what crawled up your ass in the last ten minutes,” Devi replied sharply. 

“Nothing, okay?” Wisdom would have told him to stop there, to set the car in drive, exit the parking lot and make their way to Santa Monica, but wisdom had seemingly decided to take a backseat for this conversation. “I’m just surprised that you’re not riding with Paxton. Seemed like you’d rather be hanging out with him.”

“Paxton…” Devi’s mouth fell open and she stared at him. “Are you kidding me right now?”

He wasn’t sure what she wanted to hear, so Ben threw his hands up in the air in an exaggerated shrug. 

Devi had no such problems. She spat out, “You’re a jerk” and got back out of the car. Ben flinched when the door slammed shut this time and heard more than saw her go over to Oliver’s car to bang on a window with her fist. 

Doors opened and shut and Ben thunked his head on the steering wheel a scant second before his passenger side door reopened and Eve climbed in. 

“Oliver’s car is pretty small,” she explained in that straightforward way of hers.

“Great,” Ben groaned into his dashboard. “Perfect.”

“She’s pretty pissed. It’s impressive how she can go from zero to sixty in like five seconds,” Eve said.

“More like two-point-two, actually,” Ben replied. “Believe me, I’m an expert.”

Eve laughed at him, pretty unapologetically. “Yeah, I think that’s probably part of it?” 

Ben groaned again. “Probably.”

“Hold up, there’s movement.” 

Eve was out of the car in the next second, replaced by Eleanor, who immediately said, “You have a lot of nerve, Ben Gross!”

“Apparently?” Ben asked, feeling unbelievably tired out of nowhere. 

“She waited for _days_ for you to call and now you’re acting like a scorned lover when _you_ are the one with a girlfriend!” The Porsche was roomy, but not quite enough for Eleanor’s emphatic gesticulations and she smacked her wrists against the roof. “You can’t have all the girls, Ben! You get _one_ girl and you made your choice!”

Ben watched her rub at her smarting skin and asked the ever intelligent question of: “ _What_?”

“It’s called _monogamy-”_

“No, not that, she wanted me to-” Ben cut himself off, stunned. 

Eleanor sniffed haughtily. “You’re lucky she decided she still liked you enough to be friends, but you don’t get to turn around and tell her who she can or can’t be friends with.”

“That’s not what I wa-” But it sort of was and Ben fell silent. 

“Fab is doing what she can for damage control, but you’d better ready your best, most groveling apology, because you will _not_ ruin my best friend’s last night on this side of the world, do you hear me, Ben Gross?”

“All right, I hear you,” Ben answered when she gave him a stiff poke in the bicep with her finger. “But Eleanor, I didn’t know.”

She peered suspiciously at him. “Which part?”

“That… that she was waiting.”

“Oh.” It was softer, the way she said it, but then Eleanor squinted at him. “Well, she did. Doesn’t change that you still have a girlfriend, though.”

“No, I don’t,” Ben said, as earnestly as possible.

“No, it doesn’t change things?”

“No, I don’t have a girlfriend. Not anymore.”

Eleanor’s eyes went big and she scrabbled for the door like she’d just heard of an open audition and had to get there as fast as humanly allowable. Ben flinched again when the door slammed, and dropped back against the headrest.

Fabiola was next, not that he was surprised. 

“You’re _single_?” Fabiola asked. 

Ben wanted to scream. “Yes.”

“Single,” Fabiola said again.

“Yes,” Ben hissed out. 

Fabiola huffed out a breath from her nostrils and clasped her hands together, her posture stiff and her face furrowed in thought. Finally, “Since when?”

“Depends on who you ask,” Ben replied. 

“Ben-”

“If I had my way, it would have been months ago. I tried, okay? Shira only allowed it today,” he said. 

“Allowed it,” Fabiola said flatly.

Ben looked out his driver’s side window, all too aware of how impotent it sounded. 

“I wanted-” he started and stopped, then gave it up as useless. “I wanted to be with Devi, but she just- she just left, okay? Didn’t look back, just left me in Malibu and ignored me for ages and Shira didn’t want to hear it and I didn’t want to fight, not when the only thing that would change would be me being even more alone, so I didn’t. I just... didn’t.”

He was rambling in the worst way, but it came with the discovery that it wasn’t so bad to say it, to admit it, to stop pretending that everything was just fine. He and Fab were barely friends, but his spirits felt a little lighter for having confessed.

Then Fabiola said, “For such a smart person, you are really, really dumb.”

Ben sighed.

“But I get it,” she continued, far more kindly than he likely deserved. “I get being too afraid to take that kind of risk.”

“I thought that’s what Devi wanted, for us to be friends, so I took what I could get,” Ben admitted and Fab patted him on his arm. 

“Okay, dummy. I’ll see what I can do.”

But instead of Devi, it was Oliver who joined him next. They sat in silence for a solid minute and then Oliver simply said, “Girls, man. What can you do?”

Eve returned, to both Ben and Oliver’s undisguised relief. 

“You like basketball?” Ben asked her in hopes of avoiding hearing about whatever diatribe Devi was railing against him in the other car.

“Love it,” Eve replied, looking glad for the change in subject.

“How about the Clippers?”

Eve nodded with a fervent gleam in her eye that he recognized from looking in the mirror. “This is going to be their year, I can feel it.”

By the time she got back out, they had plans for the next game.

And then there was Devi.

She put on the airs of someone completely unbothered and utterly calm, as if she hadn’t spent the last fifteen minutes cursing his name only ten feet away. The passenger door saw its softest closure so far that night and Devi wouldn’t look at him, though her expression was schooled into devoted relaxation. Ben saw through it, as always, but all he did was turn on the car when she said, “Let’s get to the pier,” and so they set off. 

Devi picked the absolute worst moment - just as he was merging onto the freeway ramp - to say, “You acted like a Class A jackass, Gross.”

He could have apologized. He should have apologized. He should have groveled, just as Eleanor advised. Instead, Ben sarcastically muttered, “Oh, goody, more of this.” 

If Devi caused him to crash, he wasn’t sure if he could have blamed her.

But in a stunning display of maturity, Devi said, “We can talk about this now or you can drop me off at home. You pick, Ben.”

He tightened his grip on the steering wheel, only partly in response to the terror of driving on the freeway. “Maybe don’t start off with an insult and I’ll listen, Devi.”

“How else would I start? Insults are, like, our love language.” Devi seemed to catch what she said a moment too late when Ben choked. She rapidly added, “You know what I mean. Not, like, _love-_ love, but, ugh, you know what I mean.”

“I do,” Ben replied, giving her a break. She could owe him later.

They fell quiet and Ben chanced changing lanes. 

“Fab said…” Devi trailed off. 

When she didn’t add anything, Ben decided to give it a shot. “I didn’t know you wanted me to call.”

“Well, I did,” Devi said quietly. 

“I _wanted_ to call.”

“Even though you were still with Shira?” It came out sharply, Devi sounding more like herself. 

“I wasn’t with her like in a regular relationship,” Ben replied. “Honestly, it was more of a hostage situation.”

Devi failed to hide how she cracked up over it. 

“If I’d known, if… if I was braver, I would have done something different. Everything,” Ben confessed and though the last time he’d driven on the freeway with Devi at his side had been the most stressful experience of his young life, somehow it felt completely safe now to tell her the truth, no matter the zooming cars on every side. “I really like you, Devi. I have for a while.”

She waited a moment, probably for an internal drum roll or rush of triumph, and at last Devi said, “I really like you, too, Ben.”

Then she reached out and Ben didn’t even have to think, he simply unclenched his right hand from the steering wheel to weave it with Devi’s and suddenly the freeway wasn’t scary at all.

###### 

The cheers they got from everyone else when they parked near the pier were unsurprisingly loud. Devi flipped back her hair with her free hand and said, “What? Like you didn’t think I would get the guy in the end?”

“Please, no speaking of endings, I can’t take it,” Eleanor said as she threw the back of her hand to her forehead. She likely meant it for laughs, but Devi’s grip tightened in his and Ben squeezed back in reassurance. 

They walked together in pairs, Devi pulling Ben to the lead with her. She was pointing at different street performers as they came closer and then yelled excitedly over the arcade, her face lit with happiness. Ben felt the same, though it wasn’t a skeeball that had his heart thudding in his chest, but the way Devi leaned against him, using her opposite hand to grab hold of his forearm to bring him in closer. Him. Ben Gross and no one else. 

It could have been Paxton, she’d admitted shortly before they’d parked. Paxton, of all people, had made a play for her in the days following their aborted kiss. Regardless of the fact that Paxton had been the golden ring only days before, Devi couldn’t say yes. Because of Ben. _Ben._

And then he screwed the whole thing up by never calling. 

“He was just saying goodbye, in Burgerama,” Devi had told him, explaining what Ben had refused to see. “I think maybe we could have been good friends if there wasn’t all that history.”

“You and I managed to be friends, eventually,” Ben said, for no other reason than that he was excellent at self-sabotage. 

“Yeah, I’m thinking these are special circumstances,” Devi said, squeezing his hand. 

Now, they walked along the promenade, still hand in hand and ignoring that in twenty-four hours such a thing would be impossible. Devi leaned back against him in the crowd and he wrapped his arms around her waist, both of them laughing when Eleanor chose to stand behind a pantomime and copy their every move. 

Together, they descended on the arcade, managing to grab three side-by-side air hockey tables and completely annoying other patrons who tried to take a turn. After, they grabbed snacks from different vendors and scarfed down heaps of fruit crisps that they’d probably be sorry for later. 

Then they headed to the carousel and maybe it was cheesy, maybe it was corny as hell, but Ben helped Devi up onto a horse and finally did it. He kissed her again. 

The world spun: the slow, steady revolution of the carousel with its matching, almost-mournful tune and Ben’s mind, which raced far faster, taking in Devi’s surprised breath and then how she practically melted against him, her fingertips softly touching his face and she didn’t shove him away, not at all. 

When Ben needed air, he parted from her a tiny amount, barely enough to attain much-needed oxygen and saw that Devi’s eyes were closed, her expression more gentle than he could have ever imagined.

And then he ruined it by saying, “I’m going to miss you so much.”

Devi’s eyes sprang open, the gentleness vanishing into shock and hurt, but she still didn’t push him off. If anything, she clung more closely, moving her hands to his chest and curling them into his shirt as she put her forehead on his shoulder. Feeling foolish and admonishing himself for saying such a thing, Ben wrapped his arms around her again, no laughter to be heard this time. 

They stayed that way for the remainder of the ride and after it finished, as everyone cleared off. When the carousel ticket vendor waved at them to leave, Ben quietly urged Devi to follow and she clambered off the horse, her head down. 

Eleanor and Fab saw them, their expressions falling when Devi crossed her arms and quickly went the opposite direction, and they both turned on him with identical glares.

“I’ve got it,” he promised them. “I’ll fix it.” 

As if he possibly could. 

He momentarily lost her in the crowd and then saw her bobbing head near the beach access. Running on the boardwalk was one thing, but catching up with her in the sand was much harder and he had to resort to kicking off his shoes to match how she’d removed her sandals. Even in her distress, she was quick as hell.

Devi came to a sudden stop, her eyes on the water, unmoving when Ben finally came to her side and hurriedly said, “I’m sorry, you’re right, I’m a jackass. That was the _worst_ thing to say-”

“Why? It’s not like it’s not true,” Devi said hollowly. She took in a deep, shuddering breath. “Tomorrow I’ll be gone.”

“It’s just a visit, you said so,” Ben said, unable to hide his despair over it. 

“What if it’s not?” Devi asked. For the first time in a long time, she sounded pained and scared. “What if my mom changes her mind? What if I’m stuck there for, for _years_?”

Ben wanted to assure her, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t even soothe himself. “I don’t know.”

“Ben Gross doesn’t know something. Alert the presses.”

It was a cover, the scathing way she said it, and it was clearly her last ditch effort because Devi hung her head again and dropped down to sit in the sand. Ben sat with her as she hunched forward and covered her face with her hands, her shoulders shaking and it was the worst feeling in the world, knowing there was nothing he could do about it but sit by her side. 

He waited for her. It was all he could do and no one could deny he’d had plenty of practice. 

It took a while, a long while, for Devi to raise her head, to brush off her face, her fingers glistening from the tears she wiped away. She bent her legs up, carefully tucking the bell of her dress over her knees and then crossed her arms over them. 

Ben watched her profile as she stared at the water again, her face drawn and her eyes shining. Quietly, she told him, “I haven’t been to the beach since… since that day.”

He bit his lip, knowing better than to interrupt, this time. 

“It’s not Malibu, but he’s out there. It’s… better? It’s been getting better,” Devi said wonderingly. She gave him a fleeting, self-mocking smile. “I’m still aces at repressing my emotions, but at least I can still walk this time. Up top!”

She raised her hand for a high five and Ben shook his head. Devi’s smile wobbled and Ben stretched his arm around her shoulders, breathing out in relief when Devi curled into him, rested her cheek on his chest and sighed.

“Sometimes I want to scream,” she murmured after a while. “Actually, I want to scream all the time.”

Ben’s lack of surprise was so strong that he laughed, deep in his chest, and Devi giggled, too. 

“Do it,” he told her as he pulled his arm back and nudged her with his shoulder. “Nobody here to care but the seagulls and random tourists.”

“And you,” Devi snorted.

“Sure, but I’ve heard you scream a million times. Mostly at me, but the fact is I’m familiar with it.”

Devi scoffed and they both stood and patted off the sand from their clothes. He could see how she considered it and he took a step back, motioning to the water with both hands. “Do it, if you want. Maybe I will, too.”

He didn’t at first, but she did. First, she gave him a doubtful look and then a hopeful one and when Ben nodded again, Devi turned in place, opened her mouth and screamed. 

It was astonishingly loud and short, cut off by Devi covering her mouth in surprise when a nearby seagull squawked in fear. She laughed and then took a big breath and let loose once more. She managed to be louder and harsher, primal in a way that her tantrums over competing grades never were. And at the end of it she smiled in exhilaration, so the next time - Ben joined in. 

They stopped when someone a distance away screamed back _oh my god SHUT UP_ and fell into one another in hysterics and it was absurd, but Ben was the happiest he’d been the whole damn night. 

“Everybody all right?” Fabiola asked carefully when they rejoined the group.

“Yeah,” Devi answered. Something eased in Ben’s chest when he saw that she meant it. “Yeah, we’re good.”

###### 

They all said goodbye in the pier parking lot, after a far less fraught carousel ride and a couple of rounds in the ferris wheel where he and Devi took full advantage of being mostly alone. There was no changing what was coming, but Ben felt that maybe they’d found some measure of hope out on the beach. A separation was imminent for who knew how long, but they were both equally miserable over it. There was a strange solace in that. 

Devi explained that Fabiola and Eleanor weren’t spending the night because the house was in comparative shambles, but that they would see her off to the airport in the morning. Because of that, she gave them quick hugs and cheery goodbyes, no different than she did Oliver or Eve. 

They drove in tandem, Oliver’s headlights in the rearview from leaving the pier to hastening along the freeway and then back in Sherman Oaks. Devi was quiet for the entire ride, her hand in his, and her grip suddenly tightened.

“Pull over,” Devi blurted out. “Now.”

Ben sent her a confused look. “There’s only green lights.”

“Not for that, just pull over, okay?” Devi asked in a rush, so Ben did, finding the well-paved entrance to an empty Whole Foods lot and pulling in. Devi stuck her hand out the window to wave at the car behind him and Oliver obediently followed. 

The car barely in park, Devi burst out of her side and into a sprint, yelling her friends' names. Maybe it was symbiosis, maybe after all these years they finally shared a brain, but Fabiola and Eleanor did the same. They joined together in one tangled masse of arms and legs between the cars and Ben could only make out one word in twenty, but he didn’t need even that to understand. 

It took longer for them to separate than it had for Devi to recover herself on the beach. When one of them started to pull away, the other two dragged her back in and they devolved into emphatic declarations and promises to not let distance tear their friendship asunder. Ben traded looks with Oliver and Eve, who looked just as resignedly accepting of the display as he felt. 

At last, one of them looked at their watch and yelped that Devi was sure to be in trouble if she was much later, which only meant that Devi hugged them for another stubborn minute. 

But the minute passed, and they let go. 

Fabiola and Eleanor went with Oliver and Eve and Devi returned to Ben. 

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Ben asked Devi as they reentered her neighborhood. 

“No, but I’m more okay than before,” she replied. They lapsed into silence again until he pulled up to the curb. When he hesitated, Devi asked, “Walk me to my door?”

“Yeah, of course,” Ben said quickly, shutting off the ignition at the same time.

They held hands all the way up the sidewalk and stopped to face one another under the front porch light. Devi reached out to fix his collar and she said, “I looked back.”

Ben was too distracted by how her palm felt warm through his shirt when she rested it in place. “What’s that?”

“At the beach, that day,” Devi told him. “I got in my mom’s car and I looked back and you were on your phone. Fab said that you said I didn’t, but I did.”

“Oh,” Ben said dumbly. Oh, so dumbly. “I was scared you wouldn’t so I… didn’t.”

“I’d say that we pulled a Harry and Ginny and kept looking at each other at the wrong time,” Devi said, amused. “But I’ve known you were there the whole time, I just hated you for most of it.”

It was _their_ history and too true to hurt his feelings, so Ben said, “Same.”

Devi grinned up at him, her eyes glistening again. 

“Not to send you spiraling again, but I am going to miss you,” Ben promised. 

“Me, too,” Devi whispered. “But two months. Let’s hope for two months.”

“Two months,” Ben repeated.

“And if it’s more” - Devi took a big breath and set her shoulders - “try not to forget me, okay?”

“How could I?” Ben asked. 

“I dunno, a massive head injury?” 

“Not even then.”

Devi pretended to glare at him. “Uh huh.”

“Come on, even if it’s two years until you come back to go to college here,” Ben protested, “that’s not nearly enough time for me to meet someone else, make them my sworn enemy and then seduce them into liking me.”

“That is not how this went,” Devi said laughingly, lifting her hand and slapping it on his chest. “If anyone seduced anyone else, it was me seducing y-”

Ben stopped her exclamation with his lips on hers and he lamented the terrible timing of it - not the kiss, never the kiss, kissing Devi would never be a mistake - but of learning the pitch perfect way to shut Devi up when the situation demanded it, far too late. 

If he was also slightly dizzy at the end of it, who was he to complain?

He looped his arms around her and Devi matched him by linking her hands at the back of his neck. They stared at one another, smiling softly, a touch sadly, and then Devi shook her head to clear it away.

“Let’s make a deal,” she offered.

“What do you have in mind?”

“Seeing as your enemy seduction plan is sure to be a failure, how about this?” Devi stroked at the soft hairs at the nape of his neck and his distraction must have been obvious because she added, “Pay attention, Gross.”

“Stop distracting me, Vishwakumar.”

She pursed her lips at him and nodded. “Okay, if I’m gone two years and you simply must move on-”

“-I can’t see how I would-”

“-you are not allowed to settle for anyone less than Priyanka Chopra. She is the only person I could possibly respect for stealing you from me.”

Ben cocked his head. “Isn’t she married to one of the Jonas brothers?”

“Yes,” Devi said solemnly, “and I will do my best to pick up the pieces of Nick’s broken heart if I have to. I’m willing to make that sacrifice.”

“You're a selfless soul, Devi.” Ben kissed her forehead and caught a flicker of movement of the curtains at the front window. “Uh, I think your mom knows you’re home.”

“Pfft, she can wait,” Devi said breezily. “Kiss me again, Gross. Like you mean it.”

“I always mean it,” Ben told her. Because he did. He always would. “But I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

“What’s she gonna do?” Devi tilted her chin up and gave him an unrepentant grin. “Ship me off to India?”

###### 

Two months.

Eight weeks.

Fifty-six days.

One thousand, three hund-

You get the gist.

Money couldn’t buy happiness, but it _could_ allow Ben to buy an obscene amount of roses, enough that everyone else in the baggage claim area would give him the judgiest of looks.

And that’s exactly what he did. 


End file.
